Thousands Saved by a Bible Prophecy TO some people the prophecies of the Bible don’t seem to be of any practical benefit. They look on them with indifference. They think it is of little concern whether these prophecies are believed or not. And yet on one occasion the lives of thousands of men and women were saved by a brief prophetic warning of just three score words. The prophetic words of the Master Teacher meant everything to them, and they will mean everything to you too if you will heed them. In Matthew 24 we have recorded the majestic outline of future events, spoken by Christ on the Mount of Olives. So exact and up to date are portions of this prophecy, that it might have been spoken yesterday instead of the distant year Of AD 31. How wonderful is the “sure word of prophecy”! It is a living thing. It travels with the unfolding of history through the ages, and when the time comes, it speaks the meaning of current events to ears that hear. The passing centuries are no barrier to the span of divine prophecy. When the hour comes, it brings forth the event foretold ages before. “Time like a mighty river, deep and strong, In sullen silence rolls its tide along.” And this living word of prophecy tells where we are in the stream of time. Christ was on the Mount of Olives with His disciples. Below spread such a view as was never seen again after the Roman armies came. The center of all was the temple. Secular writings are eloquent of its grandeur. The front walls were plated with gold, dazzling to behold in the sunshine. The historian says that elsewhere its stones were of such pure whiteness that at a distance it appeared to the stranger like “a mountain covered with snow.” So massive was the masonry that the disciples thought that nothing could ever lay it low. But the disciples had seen Jesus weeping over the city. Of what value were architectural beauty, massive structure, and the round of religious ceremony, when men were rejecting light and following their own traditions, thus making void the holy law of the Most High?  Christ knew that those religious teachers were rejecting the light of life. He knew the cry would ring out in the streets of the holy city, “His blood be on us, and on our children.” He had told His disciples repeatedly that He was going up to Jerusalem to be put to death by men. They could not comprehend it; but so it came to pass. The ancient prophecy had foretold it. All prophecy had pointed to that day when the supreme sacrifice for sinful man would be made. Yet, as Jesus said, the people of Jerusalem were too busy with earthly things and the empty forms of religion to know that they faced the crisis of the ages. “If thou had known,”  He cried over Jerusalem with weeping, as the hour of fulfillment drew near. Christ wept for the people, not for Himself, for He saw the inescapable future. On the cross He prayed, “Father, forgive them; for they know not what they do.” It was not as a martyr that He went to death, but as sinless substitute for guilty humanity. Ages before, prophecy had foretold: “He was wounded for our transgressions, He was bruised for our iniquities: the chastisement of our peace was upon Him; and with His stripes we are healed.” Isaiah 53:5. We had our part in that wondrous moment In old Jerusalem and how cheap and passing seem all earthly considerations in comparison with the eternal glories opened to us in His sacrifice upon the cross! Most people in Christ’s day were too busy to pay attention to what the “sure word of prophecy” had said of their time. Graetz, the Jewish historian, marvels that so little attention was given to these things: “How great was the woe caused by that one execution! He is the only mortal of whom one can say without exaggeration that His death was more effective than His life. Strange that events fraught with so great an import should have created so little stir at the time of their occurrence in Jerusalem.” “History of the Jews,” Vol. IV, page 165. Too busy to listen! Too intent on things of the moment to listen to the voice that speaks for eternity! That was the fatal error of the people in that time of crisis. With that sad failure grieving His heart as the moments were slipping by toward Calvary, Christ, in His prophetic outline on Olivet, sought to prepare believers in future generations to “know the times” and “the seasons.” The Savior’s prophetic discourse was given in reply to two questions asked by the disciples as they were looking down on Jerusalem. They had heard that Jerusalem was actually to be destroyed, and they evidently associated such an almost unthinkable catastrophe with the end of all earthly kingdoms. We read in Matt. 24:3: “And as He sat upon the Mount of Olives, the disciples came unto Him privately, saying, Tell us, when shall these things be? and what shall be the sign of Thy coming, and of the end of the world?” True to Christ’s prophecy, forty years later the city that had cast away God’s protection found itself compassed with the Roman armies. Every detail of Christ’s prophecy was fulfilled. Of the immediate sign of its fall, and as a signal to the believers round about to escape for their lives, Christ had said: “When you therefore shall see the abomination of desolation, spoken of by Daniel the prophet, stand in the holy place, (who so reads let him understand:) Then let them which be in Judea flee into the mountains. Let him which is on the housetop not come down to take anything out of his house. Neither let him which is in the field return back to take his clothes. But pray you that your flight be not in the winter, neither on the Sabbath day.” Matthew 24:15-20. Daniel’s prophecy had made it clear that Roman armies would be the agent of destruction. Now Luke’s record of Christ’s words gives the last sign for flight even more plainly when he says: “When you shall see Jerusalem compassed with armies.” It was in the year AD 66 that the Roman army, under Cestius, encompassed the city. They fought about the holy temple, attempting in vain to enter.  It was the signal to the Christians. But how could they flee, as Christ had commanded. The attackers encircled the city. The furious war party in the city, the Zealots, would have prevented any attempted flight. Just here came the providential stroke of deliverance. Cestius suddenly drew back. Josephus says: “He retired from the city, without any reason in the world.” (“Wars of the Jews,” Book 2, chapter l9.) The Christians knew the reason. Christ had said, “Flee.” And, as the Zealots opened the gates and set out in pursuit of the retiring Romans, the watchful believers knew their moment had come. They fled to the mountain regions beyond. For thirty-five years they had kept Christ’s prophecy in mind. It is to be understood also that for all these years they had prayed that the time of their flight might not be in the winter nor on the Sabbath day; not in the cold of winter, for the flight required such haste that Christ’s prophecy told the man on the housetop or in his garden not to try to gather any extra clothing.  History shows that such haste was necessary. The moment the Zealots returned, the gates were closed and desperate preparations were begun for the next encounter. No Christian could have escaped then. They were to pray that their flight be not on the Sabbath, for that was the holy day of rest and worship. That prayer, enjoined by Christ was answered. Graetz, the Jewish historian, has computed the days involved showing that Cestius must have withdrawn from the city on Wednesday, October 7. And so you see, their flight was “not in the winter, neither on the Sabbath day.” Before long the invading forces of Rome returned to the siege, and after fearful scenes of famine and bloodshed, the city was ultimately taken, the temple burned, and the Jewish survivors sold as slaves. But, and note this point, history records that not one Christian perished in the siege of Jerusalem. All had been saved because they heeded that one prophetic statement. To them, prophecy was important; and if we would make the eternal port in safety, we also must heed its warning and appealing voice. The final siege and overthrow of Jerusalem took place in AD 70 under Titus. He vainly tried to save the temple, but the fury of the resistance defeated his attempt and the temple was burned. The gold plate, melted by the fury of the fire, ran through the foundations, and we are told that these foundation stones were literally torn up in search of the precious metal. Thus were the words of Christ fulfilled to the very letter: “There shall not be left one stone upon another that shall not be thrown down.” Matthew 24:2. The sure word of prophecy had been fulfilled. Friends, the same earnest, loving voice, which brought warning, deliverance, and life to thousands at the dark hour of Jerusalem’s downfall, whispers across the ages to us in this troublous time: “So likewise you, when you see these things come to pass, know you that the kingdom of God is nigh at hand. Watch you therefore, and pray always, that you may be accounted worthy to escape all these things that shall come to pass, and to stand before the Son of man.” Luke 21:31-36. The Jewish nation despised the prophetic word of Christ, their city and temple were destroyed, and their people either slain or scattered to the four winds. The Christians, who heeded and trusted these words, found life and salvation. We may find the same protection from the Word of God that lives and abides for ever.   My Visit to Old Ur of the Chaldees IT is a thrilling, awe-inspiring experience to walk along the streets of Ur, the original hometown of Abraham; to wander through the ruins that once were the homes of his neighbors. I had this experience while traveling in Mesopotamia. It was a long drive by car from Baghdad along the clay road that runs toward the Persian Gulf. We drove all day and after dark arrived at a small cluster of sun baked clay huts that formed the small railway junction of Ur ‘ and spent the night with the Arabs in one of their mud huts. Dawn broke over that flat land, and as the sun grew stronger it served only to reveal a wide wilderness. Some two miles away an enormous mound of reddish earth rose from the dry, salty, blank, unredeemed desert. It was unmistakably the famous Ziggurat of Ur, the temple tower of the moon goddess of the ancient people of Chaldea. I climbed the Ziggurat by the very ramp, uncovered by the excavators, which had been used by the worshippers twenty-three hundred years before Christ. I looked around at a view I shall never forget. Immediately below, clustered at the foot of the ruined temple, lay Ur. There were thousands of roofless brick houses intersected by streets. This was the city in which Abraham was born, and from which he left for the Promised Land. To stand and look over that dead city and read the sacred Scriptures regarding it, is a thrilling experience. Notice these words from Genesis 11: 23-31: “And Haran died before his father Terah in the land of his nativity, in Ur of the Chaldees.” “And Terah took Abraham his son, and Lot the son of Haran his son’s son, and Sarai his daughter-in-law, his son Abram’s wife; and they went forth with them from Ur of the Chaldees, to go into the land of Canaan.” Until 1926 so-called higher criticism was actually taught in some churches and Sunday schools regarding Abraham. It was maintained that the story of Abraham was merely traditional folklore, and that neither Abraham nor his city, Ur of the Chaldees, ever existed. Time has again confirmed the Bible, and the spade of excavation has proved the precious old Book to be true. For centuries the city of Abraham lay as nameless ruins beneath the great waste of unprofitable sands. Now that very city has been discovered and unearthed, and we find that not only was Abraham. A real man, but that Ur was a great seaport city, a cultural center, a city of libraries, art, museums, and schools. As Sir Leonard Woolley has declared in his book, “Ur of the Chaldees,” page 118: “We must revise considerably our ideas of the Hebrew patriarch, when we learn that his earlier years were spent in such sophisticated surroundings. He was the citizen of a great city and inherited the traditions of an ancient and highly organized civilization. The houses themselves bespoke comfort and even luxury.” Here is something very interesting about one of the houses in Ur which has been lately unearthed. It is reported that on the wall beside the door, on the right side as you enter, you can see a little boy’s attempt to try out his new stylus, or ancient pencil. He had scratched a name on the wall in the cuneiform letters, which he, no doubt, learned in the school near by. If we translate this name into English we get this, “Abram.” Was this the Abram of the Bible? It was about his time, and in his city. Then in this same city a clay tablet was found containing a contract regarding camels. The name signed by the party of the first part is the same as scratched on the wall, “A-B-R-A-M,” and of hundreds and thousands of tablets found and translated, this is the only one with “Abram” upon it, and we have found it right in this city of Ur. We can confidently trust the Bible and the Christ of the Bible. When God called Abraham out of Ur of the Chaldees, he little realized to what pinnacle of fame his obedience to God would lift him. Among ancient characters there is none that takes a higher place than does Abraham the Hebrew. To the Jewish people he is Father Abraham; the Arabic descendants of Ishmael speak of him as “the friend of God.” The Mohammedans place him first among their four great prophets, while to the great Christian world he has been and still is the “Father of the Faithful.” Today, under the roof of the mosque at Hebron is his monument. It is covered with gorgeous green brocade and shielded by a silver grille. In the middle of the floor is a circular opening covered with a grating. From this grating is a lamp suspended. Peering down through the opening you can see the lamp burning in the darkness far below. You are looking into the cave of Machpelah, where rests the dust of Abraham. He left Ur with his eyes fixed on the promise of the Eternal. He was content to be a stranger and a pilgrim, “For he looked for a city which hath foundations, whose builder and maker is God.” Hebrews 11: 8-10. But let me assure you that the blank and unredeemed waste of unprofitable sand that stretches as far as the eye can see, is not what Abraham saw. Today it seems incredible that such a wilderness should ever have been inhabited by man, and that the dusty, weathered hillocks at one’s feet cover the temples and houses of a very great city. But such is the case. It has been found that the houses of Ur had two storeys in Abraham’s time, and contained from fourteen to twenty rooms, with plastered and whitewashed walls; built in a better way than during Nebuchadnezzar’s reign. Documents reveal that a high educational system existed during that period, with the following subjects taught in the schools: languages, writing, arithmetic, geography, and natural science. Jewelry and other gold and silver objects discovered in the tombs of Ur showed that craftsmanship had reached an exceedingly high level. We now know that in the days of Abraham, Ur had had a long and glorious history. The excavation of the royal tombs has revealed a fabulous store of treasures; objects of gold and silver were abundant, not only as ornaments for personal adornment but also as vessels. Weapons and even tools were made of precious metals. Copper was a metal in everyday use. They also used glass, bronze, tin, and iron. In their flourishing days the arts and crafts rose to a high level of perfection and beauty, which was not seen again for centuries. This is especially interesting to the Bible lover, for the Bible knows nothing about the fable of early barbarians and uncivilized men gradually developing into civilized peoples. Excavations have confirmed the Bible in this also. As Dr. Hall in his history of the Near East declares: “When civilization appears it is already full grown.” The same was discovered in the monuments of ancient Egypt. Notice this statement from Mr. Philip H. Groose in his book, “The Monuments of Ancient Egypt,” page 291: “The information derived from the monuments of Egypt is entirely opposed to the imagined progress of art and science. On the contrary, the more remote the antiquity of the records which have been preserved to us, the greater is the skill, the power, the knowledge, and the taste which they reveal.” These ancient peoples even had a greater knowledge of astronomy than was prevalent in civilized Europe 3,500 years later. Works of art, astonishing in their beauty, have been found to be relics of the first, not latter ages. How wonderfully the spade of the archeologist is confirming this precious old Bible of ours! Dr. A. H. Sayce, that eminent authority and archeologist, declared when speaking at a great meeting in the Albert Hall, London, on December 4, 1923: “A skeptical attitude toward the records of the Old and New Testaments is today usually the mark of ignorance or semi-knowledge. The leading scientists have returned in great measure to what may be termed the traditional views on the subject, and’ nowhere is this more strikingly the case than as regards the historical records of Scripture.” Recent findings of the archeologist continue to show that the ancient worshippers of the moon goddess of Ur, unknowingly prepared for us the baked clay evidences that God’s Word is true. The silent dead are giving emphatic testimony to the truth of the Bible records. As man has scraped away the dust of these ancient cities and tombs, and the Bible, the lamp of time, sheds its light, we see Abraham and other great characters of Scripture revealed as living originals, historical characters. The evidences of the divine origin and historic accuracy of the Holy Scriptures were never so strong as they are today. Recently a prominent archeologist was asked if any discovery had been made in all the wide-spread diggings in Bible lands that contradicts the Bible. Note the answer of this man of research: “No, not one. There has not been the faintest disproof of the Bible, but many corroborations.” This is not only interesting, but comforting: the witnesses of a bygone world testify to the correctness of the deathless Word of our God and cry aloud from the dim past that the Bible is the Word of truth. BACK TO TOC